1969 was a monumental year for Creedence Clearwater Revival. The band had already scored two platinum-selling albums and a trio of massive hits – Proud Mary, Bad Moon Rising and Green River – by the time Fortunate Son was released in September. However, unlike most of their repertoire, which tended to fetishise the rural American South, Fortunate Son was a burning commentary on class and elitism, delivered against the sulphurous backdrop of the Vietnam War.
“I was mad at the spectre of the ordinary kid who had to serve in an army in a war that he was very much against,” explained CCR songwriter and frontman John Fogerty. “Yet the sons of the well-to-do and powerful didn’t have to worry about those things.”
